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Report - Severalls Hospital, Colchester - July 2014

Regular User

This has been burning a whole on my hard drive for a few months. Thought I'd show you what I saw anyhow. Nice place that definitely needs a revisit

The History

Severalls Hospital in Colchester, Essex, UK was a psychiatric hospital built in 1910 and opened in May 1913. The 300-acre (1.2 km2) site housed some 2000 patients and was based on a plan whereby wards, offices and services were within easy reach of each other by a network of interconnecting corridors. This meant that staff were able to operate around the site without the need to go outside in bad weather. Patients in Severalls were separated according to their gender. Villas were constructed around the main hospital building as accommodation blocks between in the years after its opening.
Psychiatrists were free to experiment with new treatments on patients seemingly at will, using practices now considered unsuitable such as electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) and the use of frontal lobotomy.. A change in management during the 1960s (and likely a change in social acceptances) saw reforms introduced including the creation of art and music therapy programs and the widespread use of drugs and medication.
The hospital closed as a psychiatric hospital in the early 1990s following the closure of other psychiatric institutions. However, a small section remained open until 20 March 1997 for the treatment of elderly patients suffering from the effects of serious stroke, etc., as a temporary building for nearby Colchester General Hospital

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